Free Republic

Every president needs to escape what former President Harry Truman called the "great white jail" and what former President Andrew Jackson referred to as "dignified slavery." But for President Obama and some of his more recent predecessors, getting out of the White House has come at a cost. The on-going BP oil spill and unemployment numbers that are still at 9.5%, have made Obama and his vacations a target. The crisis in the Gulf has dogged Mr. Obama during two long weekend trips away from Washington - one to Asheville, N.C., and another back to his Chicago home for Memorial...

John Wooden dies at 99; coach won 10 national basketball titles at UCLA Known as the 'Wizard of Westwood,' Wooden's accomplishments with the Bruins during his 27-season tenure made him one of the greatest coaches in sports history. He also created the 'Pyramid of Success' motivational program. By Bill Dwyre and David Wharton 10:18 PM CDT, June 4, 2010 1 2 next Wooden delivers instructions during a timeout in the 1972 NCAA championship game at the L.A. Sports Arena. UCLA defeated Florida State, 81-76; Bill Walton, seated at left, was named the tournament's most outstanding player. (Rich Clarkson / Sports...

Liberty flourished and those who would defeat her pressed their wills on distant shores. Wherever Liberty was oppressed, “Free Men” rose and ruined the yoke that would constrain them; the world saw America as the shining star of freedom and its defender at all cost. Despot after despot dashed their oppressive wills against the walls of Freedom and time after time, continent after continent, they were defeated. With direct assault failing the oppressors of men would need a new tactic, if Liberty could not be controlled from without it must be stolen from within. Thus began the construction of the...

"Of all the talents bestowed upon men, none is so precious as the gift of oratory . . . Abandoned by his party, betrayed by his friends, stripped of his offices, whoever can command this power is still formidable." - Winston S. Churchill "(I) won a nickname, 'The Great Communicator.' But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: It was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things." – Ronald Reagan "Don't tell me words don't matter! 'I have a dream'-- just words? 'We hold these truths...

A spy network believed to have been controlled from China has hacked into classified documents on government and private computers in 103 countries, according to internet researchers. The spy system, dubbed GhostNet, is alleged to have compromised 1,295 machines at Nato and foreign ministries, embassies, banks and news organisations across the world, as well as computers used by the Dalai Lama and Tibetan exiles.

Abraham Lincoln ... Great president 46.6% Greatest president 53.4%

BOSTON, MA - December 16, 2008 - Despite dire economic forecasts, Americans will rely on credit cards in malls and for online gift shopping this year. And while some might be scaling back in light of the recession, others will rack up personal debt during the holidays. This wasn't how it used to be, according to people who lived through the hardest of economic times. In the second part of our series this week, we hear perspectives from two women who grew up during the Great Depression. Both are residents of The Goddard House in Brookline, Mass., and today they...

The current financial crisis has revived powerful misconceptions about the Great Depression. Those who misinterpret the past are all too likely to repeat the exact same mistakes that made the Great Depression so deep and devastating. Here are five interrelated and durable myths about the 1929-39 Depression:

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Democratic dominance in presidential elections has been the norm for decades throughout much of the country's union-strong industrial Great Lakes region. The GOP presidential candidate is mounting strong challenges to Democratic rival Barack Obama in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and eyeing Minnesota — four states that have thwarted Republicans in at least four straight elections. The Arizona senator is also fighting to hang on to Ohio, a bellwether that President Bush won twice. They are home to large numbers of blue-collar whites, whom Obama has struggled to win over; senior citizens, who polls show tilt toward...

Alexander the Great's "Crown," Shield Discovered?Sara Goudarzi for National Geographic NewsApril 23, 2008 An ancient Greek tomb thought to have held the body of Alexander the Great's father is actually that of Alexander's half brother, researchers say. This may mean that some of the artifacts found in the tomb—including a helmet, shield, and silver "crown"—originally belonged to Alexander the Great himself. Alexander's half brother is thought to have claimed these royal trappings after Alexander's death. The tomb was one of three royal Macedonian burials excavated in 1977 by archaeologists working in the northern Greek village of Vergina (see map of...

The Next Great Depression --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The main lesson we need to learn from the Great Depression is that government programs prolong, rather than correct depressions. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No, I am not getting ready to join the ranks of those clever economists and financial prognosticators who periodically cop a book deal by peddling a hyped-up title that feeds our perverse appetite for scary scenarios—Financial Armageddon, Get Rich While All Your Neighbors Go Broke, How To Prosper From the End of the World As We Know It. I'm sure I'm passing up a lucrative opportunity. In fact, given the jarring financial convulsions in...

Did a Comet Cause the Great Flood?The universal human myth may be the first example of disaster reporting. by Scott Carney11-15-2007 The Fenambosy chevrons at the tip of Madagascar. Image courtesy of Dallas Abbott The serpent’s tails coil together menacingly. A horn juts sharply from its head. The creature looks as if it might be swimming through a sea of stars. Or is it making its way up a sheer basalt cliff? For Bruce Masse, an environmental archaeologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, there is no confusion as he looks at this ancient petroglyph, scratched into a rock by a...

German town wants its own Great Pyramid By Bojan Pancevski in Berlin, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:17am BST 02/09/2007 The pharaohs may have set the standard, but German entrepreneurs are hoping to challenge Egypt's pre-eminence in monumental self-indulgence by building the world's largest pyramid. The pyramid of tombstones planned at Dessau They have secured €90,000 (£61,000) in state funding to assess the feasibility of building a 1,600ft tall "Great Pyramid" near the town of Dessau, in the impoverished east German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Like the original Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt, this would be a place of burial. But...

Among the 110 Hoquiam High School seniors who will graduate tonight is one remarkable young woman. Hope Hunderfund is known as a star on the High School’s golf team, one of the school’s top scholars, a dedicated volunteer, member of the Renaissance Club and president of the Future Business Leaders of America. “There are a lot of people in school … who probably think I’m just some preppie, popular kid,” the 18-year-old said. “They have no idea.” Indeed, Hope, with big blue eyes and an ever-present smile, could have grown up to be the stereotype she knows she resembles. As...

How Alexander the Great used 'Mother Nature' By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 1:45am BST 15/05/2007 Alexander the Great had ''Mother Nature'' on his side when he conquered the island fortress of Tyre in 332 BC, says a study published today. A bust of Alexander the Great Tyre, in present day Lebanon, was then a strategic coastal base in the war between the Greeks and the Persians. Now archeologists have at last worked out how Alexander's engineers managed to build a causeway to enable his army to conquer what had become a bastion of resistance. All previous settlements on...

Law enforcement officers in Tennessee make the greatest underground discovery since Tutankhamen’s tomb was unearthed in the Valley of the Kings.

Source: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Date: March 23, 2007 The Next Great Earthquake Science Daily ? The 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and resulting tsunami are now infamous for the damage they caused, but at the time many scientists believed this area was unlikely to create a quake of such magnitude. In the March 23 issue of the journal Science, a geophysicist from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute urges the public and policy makers to consider all subduction-type tectonic boundaries to be "locked, loaded, and dangerous." Subduction Zones (blue curves) and tectonic boundaries (brown curves) with filled circles showing locations of known earthquakes of M7.5...

Scientists have unearthed remains of a primate that could have been ancestral not only to humans but to all great apes, including chimps and gorillas. The partial skeleton of this 13-million-year-old "missing link" was found by palaeontologists working at a dig site near Barcelona in Spain. Details of the sensational discovery appear in Science magazine. The new specimen was probably male, a fruit-eater and was slightly smaller than a chimpanzee, researchers say. Palaeontologists were just getting started at the dig when a bulldozer churned up a tooth. Further investigation yielded one of the most complete ape skeletons known from...

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Source: University of Washington Released: Mon 07-Aug-2006, 15:10 ET Ancient Bison Teeth Provide Window on Past Great Plains Climate, Vegetation Scientists have devised a way to use the fossil teeth of ancient bison as a tool to reconstruct historic climate and vegetation changes in America's breadbasket, the Great Plains.The third molar from a bison jawbone grows to 3 inches in length and has several times more surface area than a quarter. Newswise — A University of Washington researcher has devised a way to use the fossil teeth of ancient bison as a tool to reconstruct historic climate and vegetation changes...